>>These projected experiments are to be welcomed for 2 reasons;
if
negative, they may allay some of the hysteria associated with recent
predictions of the imminence of a new influenza pandemic, and if
positive, they might facilitate prediction of the likely antigenicity
of avian-human virus hybrids and accelerate rational vaccine design.
- Mod.CP]<<

If the viruses recombine,
they will facilitate prediction of possible antigenicity of avian-human
hybrids. If they reassort, the genes will remain the same, so
those viruses with H3 or H1 will be recognized by current antibodies
and the viruses won't have pandemic potential. The viruses with H5 will
likely be virulent, but will still not efficiently transmit from human
to human. A broader transmissibility requires recombination, not
reassortment.

If the viruses fail to
recombine, it will likely just mean that the co-infection experiments
did not include appropriate selection pressures. The effects of
these selection pressures have been seen in vivo. The H5N1 in
Vietnam and Thailand have gone through several series of recent
recombinations. Most recently, they have recombined
to pick up mammalian polymorphisms, which could have come from swine or
humans.

The WSN/33 related isolates
in Korea have also gone through several recent rounds of
recombination. They recombined with swine isolates to replace a
limited number of WSN/33 polymorphisms with swine polymorphisms.
They then reassorted and recombined with avian H9N2 Korean isolates.

The viruses recombine and
reassort very frequently. If this is not seen in the co-infection
experiments, it just means that the experiments failed to mimic what
happens in nature, which should heighten concerns, not allay them.

The virus already knows how
to recombine and reassort. It does not need lab experiments to
apply these mechanisms of evolution and emergence.